The Ringer NBA Show - Kevin Durant’s Injury Changes the Offseason Calculus of Nearly Every NBA Team | Group Chat

Episode Date: June 12, 2019

We briefly preview what the Warriors have to do to make up for the loss of Kevin Durant for the remainder of the Finals (more Boogie?) (1:30). Then, we run through each big-market team with cap space and wonder whether KD’s injury has dramatically affected their offseason plans (31:32). Hosts: Chris Ryan, Justin Verrier, and Jonathan Tjarks Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey guys, this is Liz Kelly, here to tell you about some changes to the Ringer podcast network. The press box with Brian Curtis and David Chewaker is moving into its very own feed and will now be coming to you twice a week. So to keep up with the media's biggest news stories, from sports to politics to everything in between, subscribe to the press box on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts, and look for new episodes on Tuesdays and Fridays. Basketball is very good. Kevong Looney is a Max player. The Lakers should hire.

Journey Grunfeld. Kauai should sign with the Warriors. Basketball is very good. Hello and welcome to the Ringer NBA show. This is group chat. I'm Chris Ryan. I'm joined in the studio by Justin Verrier. We're here.

And we are joined on the other line by Jonathan Charks. I'm honored two of the ringers head honchos. That's right. Charks got me and Varyer in here at 9 a.m. That's not my prime take hour. Charks, this is actually your performance review? Sorry. I mean to tell you that.

John, you know, I haven't talked to you really at all about the Durant stuff since it happens. So what we're going to do today, we're going to talk a little KD. We're going to talk a little finals. Since we have Charks here, we're going to talk a little draft. And then Justin and I will kick around some free agency news and gossip to this for the second half of the show. But Charks, I haven't really talked to you about the Durant thing. And also just, you know, I think the first night and the next day that has like kind of a funeral vibe to it because I think everybody is assuming the worst, which is.

Within Achilles, you would. But people are starting to come back down to Earth a little bit. Where's your head at with the Durant situation? I don't know. As a guy from Dallas, I'll go way back with y'all. I remember just the 2003 Western Conference Finals. So Dirk sprains his knee in game one or two. And then Mark Huberman is like demanding Dirk play in like game four or five.

And Don Nelson won't play him. He's like, look, Dirk's career is more important in this one series and this one championship. We're not going to risk it. He's going to be a matter for a long time. time, I'm just not going to play him. And that was, ended up why Cuban under firing Don Nelson a couple of years later, that was the start of it. And I just wonder if the Warriors knew Durant was going to stay long term, is he playing? I don't know that he is. That's going to be, there's going to be so many questions that we're never really going to be able to answer. I think

the one that's really rising to the top in terms of people really knocking on doors about it is this idea that it seemed like Kerr was coaching from a position of, I've been told, I've been told, told that he can't injure the Achilles, that it can't get worse. He might not be 100%, but I can't really damage this guy by playing because Tom Haberstro published a piece yesterday on NBC that was basically like kind of talking, A, about the relationship between a calf injury and an Achilles injury, but also brought up the idea that Durant played, I think, what, 12 straight minutes, right? It was like 12 of the first 14.

Yeah. And that when, that even Clay and Drainian. Raymond and Steph seemed to be on like a more normal resting pattern than Drant did. Yeah, he probably, he gripped the wheel a little too tightly. And like you're alluding to, just like the situation was probably so intense. Maybe like they lost track of the minutes. Maybe KD just wanted to go out there. There's so much unknown about this situation that I feel like we're going to spend,

if not the next few weeks and the next probably months like parsing through all these things. The next 10 years. Yeah. No, I mean, you're right. It could be the next 10 years. We could be talking about four or five different franchises who have had their course. their trajectories changed by this. My big question going forward is,

are we going to fill the space, or specifically the Warriors, are the Warriors going to fill the space with Discord, or is this going to bring them closer together? Yeah, I mean, we will see. There was some talk on Twitter. I saw somebody who was like, KD, if he's at all able,

Katie should like walk out onto the floor at Oracle during game six to get like the proper thank you from the Oracle fans at the last game at Oracle. It sounded like he was going, going to New York for doctor's appointments to check up on the Achilles, the way in which this is presented moving forward will be fascinating. Is this this thing that

is a galvanizing event for the Warriors that brings them closer together, that makes Durant feel more part of the team, he opts in in a week, they have, I don't know, I mean, like that all, in and of itself is complicated because he only going to opt in for another year. He's not going to sign an extension, I would imagine. Yeah, I think it's a good point to ask Charks about just like how perhaps this would like

just affect the team on the court. Obviously not having Durant, that's a big hole to fill with a lot of guys that they don't necessarily like the difference between Durant and some of his backups. The gap is so huge. So Charks, you wrote about Clay Thompson today.

What are we expecting from him and perhaps the Warriors in order to have like a chance in this game six? I think to me the swing point now is Boogie Cousins. I think if you look at those wins, game two and game five, those are good boogie games. You look at those game three, game four,

game one, those are bad ones. To me, he's their only third option. He's their only big man who can shoot, only one who can make plays, only one who can create shots for himself and others. If he isn't out there, there's just no help for Steph and Clay, and they have to play perfect basically. And then conversely,

if he is out there, can Toronto exploit him enough on defense, get him out? I think that to me is the big turning point in game six. Do you think that boogie's pretty much capped around 20 minutes? Like, is that Is that what he can give you? I feel like he got benched in favor of Durant and Looney in the beginning of the game, but then obviously played a lot more after Durant went down.

I mean, he played 28 in game too because Toronto wasn't attacking him on defense. I mean, if he can stay on the floor, you'd love to have him out there, but I'm not sure that he can. Yeah, and I don't think they have the option anymore because we don't know what's going to happen with Looney. He's pretty much gutting through, like having one arm.

Right. I mean, it'll be like, Luny's out for the series, and then Looney will say afterwards, like I'm going to gut it out. I'm going to get out there if I can. I mean, I guess Jordan Bell, that's the other guy. Yeah, but as we saw the last game. Yeah.

That's what's come to. I mean, pretty much they're down to just whoever's available. I mean, if Alfonso McKinney could theoretically play like 30 minutes in this game. It's going to be quite a scene because you know that it's going to be a supercharged atmosphere in Oracle. I don't know that a lot of those fans thought that they were going to get another chance to see that team in that building. but on the other hand,

you can only imagine the gamut of emotions that the warriors have kind of been through since Monday night after an exhausting war of a game on Monday

and then two straight days of nonstop speculation and answering questions and thinking about what happened that night in the second quarter with Durant. Charx,

what else do you see in terms of game six stuff? What's the key for the Raptors? Do you think it's Siakam who, like Boogie, has played well in their wins and poorly in their losses? Yeah, I think so.

Because, like, Siakum is the guy they're going to help off of if you're golden state, right? Like, any play that happens if he isn't on the ball, he's the guy you're leaving open.

If Siakam knocks down with two or three threes, then there's just nowhere to, there's nowhere to leave open and they're really out of options. Yeah, it's funny that the Raptor is a team who has whittles its rotation down to seven,

at times, maybe even eight guys, is the deeper team? It just seems like they're just solid throughout that, and that's enough against a Warriors team that's like, just spotty. You're counting on a Quinn Cook

to give you consistent minutes. And it's just, the Warriors are going to be riding lightning like they have the past few games where they're just hoping that their two all-star shooting guards, essentially, are going to be able to score 30 or so, and they'll get enough from those auxiliary guys. Yeah, this was the question over the course of the,

ever since Durant went down, when this Raptors, once they got past Houston and this Raptors, and they, you know, they waltz through the, the finals, but I think everybody has always been trying to do the math. How do the Warriors get to 100? And with Durant, it gets there pretty easily. But you start asking for points from places that you don't normally get it,

and they didn't get much from Iguidala on Monday. They didn't really get a ton from Dremond, I don't think. 14 from cousins, it really is a big thing. If Boogie can get up to 20, this is a different ballgame. And then you start getting some voices in the back of your head if you're Toronto. Yeah, and I just look at the Boogie Cousin signing. I've been harping on this a little bit, but I feel like it's come to bear this postseason, and this finals in particular.

I understand why they went out and signed Boogie for the price. It was just a bargain deal, and it seemed at that point, after winning two straight finals, they were more concerned about having the proper motivation to get them back there in the first place. But looking back on it, it just feels like such a hubristic move to go out and sign another. All-Star and a center specifically when you have so many centers on the roster. Your roster was already thin on the wings. Iguodala was hurt last postseason and looked washed and some of the other guys were hurt. Staff was hurt and like we went through this all last season where they just didn't have the proper depth to support him to not go out there and

divert that money toward the wing as weird as it is to say that a team with so many Hall of Famers can come down to some of these fringe moves. Like I think those things add up, specifically because your options and your means for filling out the rosters are so precious. Is there a guy that you thought that they should have gone after that was out there? I said Wayne Ellington in my piece in August. That'd be nice. He'd get a lot of points in that team.

I got the Charks approval. That's all I wanted there. I think he ended up signing for if not. I really, really want you to write like a 3,000-word column. That's like the warrior, like, Durant isn't to blame for the Warriors. It's the lack of signing Wayne Ellington. I've got an even more obscure. How about if they had just bench Damian Jones for the playoffs

and activated Damian Lee? There you go. When you can shoot. The forgotten Curry. Steph Curry's brother-in-law. Six-six-hye can shoot threes. It'd be nice to have them instead of another big mid who can't play. That's the thing.

This roster is just so top, or not top of you, but it is so full of just bigs because for a while, they were just rolling the dice on whatever guy they can get in order to fill those five minutes. Looney eventually stepped up as like the perfect guy for that lineup. but they just have tried the Damien Joneses of the world, the Javell McGee's and some of these other guys,

so that even the Dronis Jerebko, like if he can't give you minutes in this series, that's kind of a failure. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of hilarious. Like, who is the best five they played in these playoffs? Probably Markasol, right? Yeah, probably. Like, you've got to stock up big to guard Marksult

three point line? It's just crazy. Charks, have you enjoyed this finals? Oh, it's been up and down. I mean, five was entertaining, but it's been a pretty brutal finals, all things that are level of play, I feel like. I don't know. I've been really interested in this. I don't know if it's just because there's so much

to be drawn from the result of this finals, and it feels like every game hinges, like it has a way to ripple into the summer and perhaps the rest of the league. Like, we're constantly following the Kauai and the KD thing. And maybe I'm just like so entranced by the Raptors and the fact that they've been able to do this and they're like looking like they're going to win this.

To me, that's like, that's like a one every five to six-year story. We haven't seen anything like this since the Spurs did it with Kauai against the heat. Yeah. Okay, Justin, honest question, though, like, does every game matter like that? Or are we as creating content, right? Well, that's a good question. There's something about, you know, the finals are, I don't know whether I would like enjoy it more if it was, there was a little bit more of a national title game atmosphere to it. I don't know that we would necessarily feel like that was a fair

way of deciding the champion. Basketball's probably pretty fair, although the war of attrition that we're seeing throughout these playoffs makes me feel like we're not really getting the best possible product at the most important time of the year, whereas I think other sports

strive to create that kind of environment in some ways. But I think the thing is that with this finals is the highs have been super high. The Kauai going nuts during the fourth quarter there before Nick Nurse through the cooler timeout on him

was about as good as basketball can get. Yeah, and it's weird for me to make the argument that it hasn't been fun coming off of the most recent game, which is potentially like a finals classic. Like so many things happen in that. And while it was chaotic, and I think some people can read chaotic is just sloppy, and there certainly was a ton of that, especially toward the end.

But like we got so many dramatic moments. And I think the only thing I'm looking for in terms of just like entertainment value is drama. And like this series has had more of that than I can remember in a very long time, especially comparison to the most recent Cavs Warriors finals. Like, do we prefer just like one team getting blown off the court completely? No, not at all.

I would say the 2017 finals, though, they were five games. Those were five really well-played games. It was like 135, 130. You had like the great game four for Cleveland, Katie in game three. I don't know. I feel like in terms of pure basketball, 2017 was pretty fun,

even though it was a short series. Probably. And we are seeing more guys like McKinney, cook and all those sorts of things. And I think that has a trickle-down effect. But I don't know. I've been engaged by what we've been saying. Yeah, no, me, I've been engaged as well.

I think that, I think Fantasy actually was talking about this. He's like, there was a point during game five that was like, oh, this is kind of what this finals is supposed to be. And it was when Durant was playing. It was this kind of like real heavyweight boxing match that felt like there were three or four great players on both sides of the ball. And on each possession was highly. contested, really smart, really good.

There's a little bit when it's all Splash Brothers, it feels a little like two varsity guys playing with three JV guys sometimes. I guess the worry there would be if Durant was in these games, would it just be like last year's finals? Is that just like such an advantage that they would just blow I was mentally prepared for that though?

I think we all were. And perhaps that's it. I think if you, I think we all say going into a season that preseason expectations don't matter, but what were we talking about the bucks up until like two series ago that like they were playing beyond their years. The expectation sets the bar

for almost like your entertainment value and so for the Raptors to exceed that, I don't know. It's just been really shocking to me and like this is a league where we don't get a lot of shocking results and we'll look back five years from now and say perhaps this Raptor's title team

is a total outlier in the history of the NBA. Well I guess that depends on top with Kauai, right? how his free agency determines, if he comes back, maybe they're like a team that was the next two or three finals. Who knows? That's an interesting one.

And I think it's particularly interesting in the context of Kevin Durant because I do wonder how Durant, while it's sad to see him go out the way he did, the way that this ripples into the rest of free agency and the rest of the league, I think, is going to be fascinating.

Something Chris and I talked about on a video project yesterday was just, I think it's going to affect a lot of teams, but I also wonder if Kauai ends up staying. Charks, what do you think about the Raptors being the Dark Horse team that goes after Anthony Davis?

I've been saying they should do that all season. Yeah. I think I'd make a ton of sense in the world. I mean, go bigger, go home, right? If you have Kauai and Anthony Davis, because I'm thinking from Kauai's perspective, like the board's kind of cleared right now. LeBron's, what, 35 and playing in a bad team,

Durant's out for at least this year, probably two years before he's healthy again. And Kauai's 27, 28. If I'm Kauai, you win this year, I got two titles. If I can get anything from my team, I can just think about getting three, four, five championships. It's going off to Michael Jordan. The floor is open for them right now. The league is totally available for Kaua's dominate.

And if you're the Raptors, you go all in on that trade because you'll never get back to this point ever again, probably. Right. I mean, we're talking about them potentially pairing on a team like the Knicks. and if they can just get over the fact that they'll have to like pour their milk out of bags, like that situation is shown that like it has the infrastructure to perhaps add the guys on the fringes in order to fill out a rotation. And they already probably have some guys left over. I mean, the bulk of this potential title team that we're seeing right now is primarily veterans in Kauai and some fringe guys.

Yeah. I feel like you could recreate a situation even if you give up a Siakum and OG, some of these other guys in order to get an AD. I think you could still put together a title contender over the next couple years. So, though really, it's not really the Raptor's call, is it? It's Kauai's call. Yeah. Right? They say, Kauai, what do you want?

And I feel like when you're at Kauai's level, like, okay, the basketball stuff is done. Everyone knows you're a great player. Now can you be a great GM? Can you be like the next LeBron? Can you build a team? Because that's the challenge at that level of the game. It's not being a great player. It's finding the right team mates, identifying the right players, etc.

The question is, is Uncle Dennis, Rich Paul, caliber in terms of, of being the behind-the-scenes guy. Right. I don't know about that. Test your whole infrastructure. Who knows? And this is what it's so fascinating, that we talk about all these possible machinations, all these ripple effects, but it's ultimately going to come down to what these guys want. Yeah. And I think that's particularly interesting when we talk about Durant, like, how does this affect

what his priorities are? And from there, I think everything else falls in line. It's one of the most unique situations I think I can remember in professional sports, especially in any kind of transactions of professional sports, where teams are going to be offering Kevin Durant a contract that he's only going to be really able to fulfill half of. If they offer him a four-year deal and he misses next season

and then he spends the following season kind of getting back to playing shape or whatever his new median is, you're essentially talking about two years of a guy in his early 30s, still early mid-30s, and you don't know necessarily how high he can reach, but as we've been discussing for days in the office,

Kevin Durant with 10% less ability is still pretty good. Yeah, and I think we might, the next time we see Durant, he could potentially be in his LeBron phase, which is sad to say, considering that we've seen him most recently just completely dominate the league, in particular dominate the finals. But I think Charks, you would agree that, like,

he's probably going to have to change some things about his game going forward. I mean, I think, I mean, even like, let's say he hadn't got hurt. He'd have been in his early 30s. He had a ton of miles on his body. He had been slowing down eventually. So, yeah, I think this only accelerates the evolution of his game. And nice thing for Durant, I think compared to most players, you've got this injury,

is Durant has multiple outs from here, right? Like, a slower version of Durant's a different kind of player, but he's still seven feet tall. He's still a great shooter. So even if you're a slower seven-foot guy who can shoot and you can play defense. Maybe Durant bulks up and plays four and five consistently now. Like he has ways to get better despite the,

not better, but different besides the injury. Yeah, and I mean, he's always going to be able to shoot. So he'll always have a place. It's just fascinating to see. I mean, one thing we've been talking about just around the office is just for a while he was playing on essentially the biggest bargain contract in the league, a Hall of Famer on a max deal.

Like, that's like his value supersedes even that. I do wonder, like, if he is just an all-star, like, what that means, especially for a team like the Knicks. Like, if your whole game plan was to surround Kevin Durant, if, like, you couldn't end up getting Kyrie Irving, who seems like he's destined for Brooklyn at this point, how do you go about that? Because Durant was, there's a certainty with a player of Durant's caliber, and that no longer exists. And I think that's what we're going to have to see play out. I mean, I think they're trading for Anthony Davis, right? That'd be the plan. If they get Durant.

Well, there was a rapport, I think, for me in Begley, that, like, they might waffle on that. Now, probably trading for Davis. Yeah, and so perhaps that's just posturing because now we're starting to see teams back off to suggest that, like, they won't give the farm in order to trade for Davis. I also just think there's going to be a schism inside the Knicks. To the extent that they're not on the same page, I just think we're going to hear more and more about, like, the Knicks are all go with the plan that they've always had, which is to offer Kevin Durant the Max and sell him on reviving basketball at the next. garden and then there's going to be a couple people inside that building. They're like, we should not do this. Yeah. Specifically, the report was there, some are comparing the Davis deal to Carmel Anthony deal where it's like, just don't give up enough. Now, different players

in terms of quality, just a little bit. But I could see the thinking where if you've completely mortgaged your future for one guy and nothing else, like, does it not bring up the same sort of anxieties that perhaps the nuts are feeling right now giving up a first round pick in their first possible opportunity. Hey, Charks, before we let you go, I wanted to ask you a little bit about a topic near and dear to your heart, which is the new Memphis Grizzlies coach. St. Mark's legend, Taylor Jenkins. Break it down for our listeners, Charks. What's the connection? So he was a senior at St. Marks when I was a sophomore. I was on the JV. This is a legendary Dallas basketball factory. Am I right? Hey, two-time SBC champion. Have some respect to him. And what were you? Were you like kind of like

a, you know, like a toolsy, Udanas Haslam type guy for them? Or what's your, what's your makeup? I was like, we were both actually the same position. We were both kind of like, high post fours. So we were in a pretty like traditional two post offense. We had some ballers, man.

A traditional two post offense? Yeah, Taylor's year, we had a six, six guy to go to UNC for football. And then when I was up there, we had a six guy to go to Colgate and a six, nine, I'd go to Air Force. You were just killing people. Wow. Post up, post up post up.

Colgate and Air Force. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So you and Taylor Jenkins play ball together. Now Taylor Jenkins is moving from Mike Buddenholzer's bench on Milwaukee to Memphis. Got a great job, man. Can you tell us anything about him? You guys stay in touch on Facebook groups or anything? I actually saw him at Summer League like last year. We cut up for a while. I think he's going to run the same kind of stuff Bud ran, right? That's what he sold himself as. Like, I'm going to go to Memphis. We're going to modernize. We're going to shoot threes.

We're going to play Jaron at the five. John Moran at the one. Talk about a good job for a young coach. Low expectations, small market, not a lot of media, too young building cornerstone players. You can have three, four, five years there, get a good playoff thing going. And then you've got a good reputation going forward. Like, this is, I mean, it's an ideal job.

He really lucked out. I guess the one thing I'm curious about is what it means for Mike Conley. Like, it seems like this guy's forte is player development and he's on the younger side. So you'd assume that they're probably going to lean into sort of, a rebuilding situation. So I do wonder, this ultimately means

John Moran is in and perhaps Conley goes. I can't see Conley wanting to stay. I mean, he's older than Taylor Jenkins by the same age. That's insane. And then he's playing

with two 19-year-olds while as a good friend Markisaw might have won a championship. He's probably going to go play somewhere else, I would think. It seems like

Chirk, you know, you just mentioned Moran, it seems like the top three is starting to solidify a little bit with obviously Zion won to New Orleans

Jah to Memphis, R.J. to New York. And then it seems also like the consensus is Garland is moved up into four for the Lakers. Would you agree with all that? I mean, not really. I think for me, Jha and Zion have separated themselves. I'm not a big RJ guy. I get my people like him, but I'm not a huge on him. And I think for sure Garland v. Four is a total unknown.

If you go back and look at the drafts, like after the top two pitch, and most drafts. Like, no one really knows who number three and four are. Like, how often are the top four players in the draft for the top four picks? Pretty much never, right? Yeah. Well, also, this is a draft in which the third pick, the fourth pick, you know, possibly you could see the sixth pick from Phoenix, the seventh pick from Chicago.

I assume Atlanta's just going to go full. We have the AAU team here and keep all their first round picks that they have. I think there might be trading up. Okay, so give me a hypothetical one that were like a one, give me a possible way Atlanta can mess around here. I think Atlanta, my guess would be Atlanta wants Cam Reddish. He kind of fits the mold they've been drafting. He's a big shooter, two position defender. Then you have him and Herder out the wings.

I think they try to package 7 and 17, maybe one of their seconds, we have like four or five. For Reddish? I think they want to make sure they get him. I mean, eight's a long way down. So would they keep eight? I think they move, I mean, like, if they stayed at eight, they want not to get them. They move eight to go up to like four or five to get ready. Charx, every draft you have a guy.

Last year, I believe it was Shea Gildress Alexander. That one turned out to be pretty right. And I think you had OG the couple years ago, right? Yeah, let's go with that. I said, plenty of guys that don't work, but we don't count those. No, no, we forget the things that are wrong. Exactly. Play the hits, man.

So who's your guy this year? Have you settled on anyone yet? Yeah, I think Brandon Clark, the Gonzaga guy. So he was a transfer San Jose State. He was like a 22-year-old junior, 6-8-215. He's probably the second best athlete in the draft after Zion. Just freakish athletic ability. And he had like three blocks a game, two steals, shot like 70% from the field.

I think I could see him as like the small ball four, small ball five. To me, he's got some Sean Marion's game. Ooh, I like that. Even though he is a little bit older. He is. That doesn't concern you at all? I think with him, when you're that athletic, I think the normal kind of progressions don't really apply

because Brandon Clark walks into the league as a top 10 athlete in the league. And then if you look at what's interesting about Brandon Clark, if you go back to San Jose State Days, he had the worst jumps I ever seen in my life. And so it was like from behind his head. Like watch his film. It's incredibly bad.

So he takes the year off. He registers to Gonzaga. He rebuilds his shot. And he actually shot really well this year from like 15 feet. So to me, his shooting potential is still pretty high because he's successfully rebuilt his shot. So I think he has upside that most older guys don't have

given that shooting potential and his athletic ability. You have a piece, sort of mini piece in our NBA draft guide, which people can find at MBAdraft.org.com. It's an incredible resource. Are you still as high on Kobe White as you were when you kind of wrote that, this guy could be the best point guard in the draft? Yeah, I think so.

I mean, I think with White, it's more like you're trying to find more guys. and you're kind of reaching a bit. You're like, oh, maybe this kind of work out. I think with White, like these couple baselines, a 6-5 point guard,

a really good shooter. I mean, a 6-5 guy who's a plus athlete and who shoots more threes than twos, that to me is an interesting player going forward. I think he's very raw, he's a developing passer. He's probably two, three years away.

But if I was in a gamble on a point guard out after Jha, I'd probably take Kobe White over Darius Garland. What about? You got any more draft questions? There's a decided lack of huskies in here. I know that... It's been a bleak few years.

Yeah, it hasn't been good. There's some thick boys, though. That's true. What happened to Kevin Ollie? Is he in the basketball anymore? Yeah, what's going on with him? I follow him on Instagram. Is he selling real estate?

He's just hanging out with his kids. He's going to graduations, it seems like, once a week. Okay. It seems like he has a nice life. I think he's still in, like, litigation. Right? They're trying to, like, take his money or something. Yeah, I think, like, he's still probably tied up in the courts

because he tried to push back on the firing and him not getting his money. So I think he has other concerns at the moment. Yeah. All right, Charks, thanks so much for joining us, man. I think you'll probably be on a bunch of draft pods in the coming days, I would imagine, as we get into draft season next week.

Obviously, people can read John on the Ringer very frequently, and you'll definitely hear from him after game six in some capacity. Charks, thanks so much for hollering. Yeah, thanks for having me on. Bye, buddy. Today's episode of the Ringer NBA show is brought to you by Belvedere, part of a 600-year Polish vodka making tradition. Belvedere vodka is all-natural and made with 100% non-GMO,

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Today's episode of the Ringer MBA show is brought to you by eight sleep. Do you know what the worst sound in the world is? It's your alarm clock if you haven't got enough sleep. Now imagine this scenario. The surface temperature of your bed gradually adjusts to wake. you up gently and naturally without the sound of the alarm. This is the new pod by 8 Sleep, a high-tech bed designed specifically to help you achieve optimal sleep fitness. There's a reason Time magazine called 8, one of the best inventions of the year. It combines dynamic temperature

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So that's fun. The reason why I want to talk about Anthony Davis today is we talked a little bit about this with Charks, but Durant obviously has a huge impact on the free agency landscape. Not only is it going to affect probably what happens with Kyrie, even though as we are recording this, it sounds like apparently Kyrie is opting out of his last year on his deal,

as was expected with the Celtics. All the indications that you can find on Twitter, but also like Justin and I've heard, is it just sounds like Kyrie and Brooklyn have really found each other, which is just a great thing when two people can lock in like that.

I personally am pretty skeptical of the Kyrie Irving effect right now for an NBA team. I don't know necessarily that he will destroy Brooklyn, although he certainly did Boston. And I'm just not really clear on what he really gives Brooklyn, honestly. Like, I don't really know what he does for them. I think obviously with that Atlanta trade,

they are anticipating also adding another player with him. The idea I think was Durant. Yeah. They may still offer him, but it will be a very, very interesting summer for Brooklyn. It'll be a very interesting summer for Anthony Davis. well. Yeah. I think it's particularly interesting considering that they made a trade in which they got rid of two future first round picks, one of which was this summer,

which was the first one they got post-Seltics disaster. And the next week, Kevin Durant is now probably off the table, or at the very least if they sign him, it's a lot more complicated. Yeah, because especially when you consider the fact that the amount of lower body injuries Kyrie's had over the years and Kyrie getting older you're talking about if you sign Kyrie to a four-year deal and you signed a rent to a four-year deal, you're basically matching

them up on the second half of those four-year deals, right? Yeah, and on top of that, if you commit to Kyrie, you're saying goodbye to DeAngelo Russell. So on the one hand, you have Kyrie potentially in hand, or at least

that's what all the tea leaves are pointing toward. But like everything else is in flux here. So it seems like they're really going out on a limb in order to build a new reality based around Kyrie. I just think my Saigon and everybody's head. I just think

that the idea I'm interested in Brooklyn and I'm really interested in Atlanta. Because Atlanta is another team that I think like Brooklyn has started building the right way. Now the right way might not ultimately lead to a championship. But you see, okay, we're just going to put

together really good young players. We're going to give them minutes. We're going to develop them. We're going to get a coach whose eyes on development. It's the same thing the Sixers do with Brett Brown. They're doing it with Lloyd down in Atlanta. They do it with Kenny and Brooklyn where it's just like, we're going to make DeAngelo Russell and Carislevert and these guys better every season.

And then Maasai comes through and blows up his team and puts together a final contender, if not likely winner with Markasol and Kauai Leonard and is now also in position to make some wild move next

this off season to even double down on that run. And you know what? No one's going to care about a five-year plan. Like if Toronto is completely screwed throughout the 2020s, no one's going to care if they win two titles before that. Right. And I think that's really interesting going into this next off season. Because if you look at the recent history of which teams end up trading for these stars

that are dangling, that are disgruntled, it hasn't been the ones who have carefully, meticulously, like, crafted this super team. So we all thought that it would have been a good idea for the Sixers to go after Quai Leonard. They didn't get them. Paul George didn't go to the Lakers, a team that's been air quotes rebuilding for a very long time. Yeah. He went to the Thunder for a much more reasonable package of like established young veterans. And stunningly resigned there.

Quy Leonard goes to the Raptors. It really has come down to not the team that has taken the long approach and has stacked assets. But it's really, the advantage has been the team that's bold. Even the Pelicans trading for Demarcus cousins. Yeah. Like nobody saw that coming. And the package at the time we thought wasn't to the level of what you could expect for a talent of cousins. So I think in addition to some of the other things that are going on, the fact that some of the prices perhaps could be coming down for a Davis as like some of the presumed buyers perhaps might fall off.

maybe the Celtics don't put Jason Tatum on the table, now that Kyrie seems like he's gone. Maybe the team that just like says, well, fuck it. Let's just give this a try. Maybe that's actually the advantage on this market. Speaking of the Celtics, there is a giant Rich Paul feature in Sports Illustrated that went up today. Yeah.

By S.L. Price, behind the scenes look at LeBron James's agent at Clutch Sports, the head of clutch sports. And it goes into detail about everything that Rich Paul has been involved with over the course of the last couple of years, including LeBron James, going back to Cleveland,

which it sounds like Rich was the person who orchestrated that in a lot of ways and that there was a lot of resistance among LeBron and his inner circle to doing that, and Rich is the one who brokered the piece. Not only with Dan Gilbert, but set it up specifically to maximize LeBron's value

over the several years there, and also get Tristan Thompson and J.R. Smith paid while that was happening, because you had to kind of constantly re-up the entire LeBron's. LeBron infrastructure every year. You know, and then LeBron moves to the Lakers, and Rich has obviously worked very closely with Rob Polinka there.

He's also Anthony Davis's agent. Boston was presumed to be one of the frontrunners for Anthony Davis's services because they could put together the best possible package. This is a two-part conversation I want to have with you. Here's the quote from Rich Paul about Boston. After earlier in the year, it was reported that Davis's father through some cold water on the idea of Boston trading for AD. Rich, quote, they can trade for him, but it'll be for one year.

I mean, if the Celtics traded for Anthony Davis, we would go there and we would abide by our contractual obligations and we would go into free agency in 2020. I've stated that to them. But in the event that he decides to walk away and you give away assets, don't blame Rich Paul. So this is really interesting also in relationship to what Justin was just saying. because no team has been more patient than the Celtics in a lot of ways. And even in getting Kyrie Irving, in the long run, as distasteful as it might have been to trade Isaiah Thomas,

they didn't give up a lot for him, right? And they've been sitting on all these assets, and they've got all these young guys who have gone through various waves of appreciation and depreciation of their value. And now, the Celtics have three first round picks this year. They don't want three rookies coming in, according to Woge, who went on an ESPN draft show and said that,

that they have no intention of having three rookies, unproven talents on their team. And furthermore, the Kyrie Hayward, Horford, let's surround like proven all-stars with the young guys, has done nothing but make Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum seem a little bit more volatile as, as like commodities.

You know what I mean? They're not, it's Jason Tatum went from the next Kobe to, is this the next, like, Rudy Gay? You know, we're not, really sure what this guy is. That's the dark side of holding on to your powder for too long, right? Right. Yeah. I also just wonder

how much of all of this, both from the Celtic side and from the Rich Paul side, is just posturing. Ultimately, Paul works for Anthony Davis. And while Davis, everything that we've heard from him, because he doesn't speak all that often, especially lately, is that he wants to go to the Lakers and the next, yada, yada, yada. but like if he gets into the Celtic situation and he deems that he likes it,

like there's nothing Rich Paul could ultimately do. He works for Davis and thus would have to like help him sign whatever deal he wants to sign. Yes. But on the Celtics side, you probably want to get it out there that you aren't going to go that route. That like you don't need to worry about Davis. You'll be fine regardless. And so I-

They tried that a little bit. They started talking about how they want to build around Brown and Tatum. That was, that came out. That seems like the most prudent path. Yeah. Would you try to trade Hayward? I think, I don't think Hayward is consequential at the moment. I think trading him at the lowest part of his value, which is probably right now, wouldn't be wise. Like, why wouldn't you just, if you can't utilize how big of a deal he is in order to, like, match salaries?

I don't know why you would trade him at this point. Just wonder if there's going to be a team out there who gets duck, duck, goose. and is then sort of like, hey, we'll take Gordon Hayward, like a Pacers. It could be. Or perhaps they need to clear space. Hayward has enough potential, and you could sell other teams on like, well, that was just the injury he needed a year to get back. He'll be better for you. Right.

And so perhaps a team like the Heat who's just been thirsting for a superstar forever in Hayward, I believe either talked to them or the Heat had a lot of interest in Hayward when he was a free agent. Sure. maybe that sort of situation would work. I guess the one thing I would say is even though the Celtics have found themselves in a situation where they might be a prisoner of their own making, they still have a ton of options. Absolutely. Yeah, they probably don't, we don't know what they're going to be. And in the past, they've definitely messaged that they've, they've, like, tried and failed to get, like, to put those assets to work. And in a weird way that's coming back to want them.

Yeah, they've also got a completely different situation where Danny. A. A. has the most job security in the league. And not only most job security, the least job volatility. Because unlike Maasai or Bob Myers, there's no rumors swirling around Danny Ains that he's going to go take over the Wizards. Yeah. Or he's going to go take over the Lakers.

So they have options. Yeah. Unlike Adel Dems, who had to make certain moves in order to save his job, it seemed like year to year. That was the case. Like, the Celtics can kind of be whatever they want. And if I'm them and like no blockbuster trade presents itself, what's the problem of just like leaning into Tatum and Brown for another year,

waiting for that Grizzly's draft pick and just like kind of going ahead and being a pretty good team. Yeah, and you never know what could happen. You never know if that team clicks again. You never know how good they could be like they were two years ago. Yeah. Other Davis stuff from the SL Price piece, there's some good stuff about the way in which that the trade request became public in the first place, which is essentially, it

sounds like it got leaked by Demps and that Woj called Paul for confirmation. and that's how Paul wound up making his statement being like, yep, he wants to be traded. Or rather the Demps went to Davis himself and never got back to Paul. And then Woge contacted him and Paul was like, Woj called me to confirm Davis's demands. And I was like, this is crazy. I have to go public now. Well, he also didn't need to go on the record, which I believe he got fine for it. Sure, he could have said no comment.

Yeah. Yeah. And I do wonder, and this is just a small part of this entire thing, like, can he? not get fun for this as well? Yeah. I know. I mean, he doesn't seem to think so. Also, I would say that the description of Anthony Davis building a house in Westlake in Los Angeles and also needing to buy someplace closer to downtown would not inspire a lot of confidence in anybody outside of Los Angeles that Davis is going to stay there past next season. Yeah, that's a hike. I mean, that's what all of the Lakers and the Clippers do. Yeah. They all stay in the LA

Live, whatever that is. That's the Kobe spot. Yeah. spot and I think LeBron has one too. So yeah, that's where we're at. There's been some talk about three-team trades, about needing other teams to be involved. We talked on our Kevin Durant, Ripple effects video that you can find on the ringer.com. And on YouTube, Justin and I talked about

the idea that we broached with sharks as well, of the Raptors getting involved, of that being part of a three-team trade for Davis. And no matter what happens, it's just going to be such a fascinating the next couple of weeks because Griff is saying all the right things in New Orleans. He's making all the things.

the right moves. He's hiring Swin Cash and hiring the son's doctor and hiring Traygeon Langdon. And it's just like everything is like we're a top notch organization, best in class. Like he's doing a really good job selling the franchise. Yeah. Can I jump in real quick? Sure. Swin Cash fell Husky. I saw on Twitter the other day. She was like, man, you guys told me all about these restaurants. We did not tell me about this humidity. And I was like, man, literally me two years ago. Right. Because you're just like, so my, life is sweating and eating Benyis.

It's brutal. There are a lot of good things about New Orleans, but good God, the humidity is... What's the thing you miss the most? Is it the food? Probably, but I don't miss, like, what it did to, like, my, my heart. Yeah. But, yeah, there's a lot of good stuff. Is there anything...

You're the Davis whisperer, so what do you make of... How did I get here? What do you make of all this stuff? I don't know. This all feels like a lot of prelude to me. we still don't know much of anything. Woj had a pretty thorough newser kind of encapsulated where everything is.

And I thought there were a few good nuggets in there, one of which suggested, as we mentioned before, that perhaps the Celtics are more on the fringes of this at this point. Now, that could change just as simply as, like, tomorrow or while we're talking, if Danny Hs just picks up the phone and it's just like, hey, how about Jason Tatum? It just doesn't seem, I think we're still

in the waiting period. I think that they're based on no information whatsoever. I just think there's a real chance that Griffin really wants Davis to start the season with Zion and just be like, let's see. I want everybody involved in this situation to see what it could be. Yeah, I would too, because if you look at the other guys they're going to trade for, nothing is going to come remotely close to the Valley of Davis. I think we forget that. He's probably a top five player, if not maybe even top three, if he is fully healthy and engaged and actually playing and not leaving. And I do think that that Lakers deal will be there in February. probably will. They just don't have many other options. I mean, and that's the thing here. I think we're going to get down to a situation where things are changing,

like just the Brooklyn trade that happened the other week. That changes the dynamics of who is motivated in order to do this. And I think ultimately, like, the Pelicans are kind of banking on a team like the Lakers always being there for that. And that's a risky move. But as we're seeing, like, there was a report the other day. it's just like the Lakers want to act quicker on the Davis front, specifically because they need something to lure another free agent.

Yeah. So you really, it really is coming down to the summer, perhaps, the desperation of the Lakers, which is a weird place to be in for everybody. And the Knicks and so many other teams. That's the thing is that we're going to find out now, especially with, and this is the thing that Justin and I talked about in the video a lot, is why, if Duran is injured and if Duran becomes a,

a much longer conversation between GM and owner about dedicating four years to him. What does that mean for the guys that were beneath Durant and the pecking order of free agency? What does it mean for Jimmy? What does it mean for Tobias? What does it mean for Clay? What does it mean down and down the line?

And does everybody jump up a notch in terms of you're now in first position? We're now going to pitch everything we've got at Kemba. We're now going to show Jimmy everything he could be out here in Los Angeles. and all those guys have better options staying at home. That was what the CBA was made for so that they could keep guys like Kemba in Charlotte. No matter what it did to those teams

and really what kind of legacy it left for the player, if Kemble wants the security of that much money, he doesn't have to go anywhere. Yeah, and I think it's interesting which teams will take the extreme route and go super bold. And I think it's also to, I'm curious like which teams

will go the complete opposite direction and see that the market advantage is actually to wait a year. Pretty much Atlanta is the only team that's outright saying that we're willing to punt our cap space. Like, we're going to rent this out and just roll it forward. Just give us your assets. We're basically a trash dump for your bad contracts. I do wonder which teams will go that route.

And I wonder which teams will pursue the restricted free agent markets. If DeAngel Russell is out in Brooklyn, he's probably already getting a sense of the landscape and putting out fielders that like, hey, I'm actually probably going to sign somewhere else, which is why we saw pretty recently reports of like interest from the Pacers, interest from the jazz. Yeah, the mid-tier guys, he's like the prize possession of the Orlando, Indiana squads. I am really curious to see what the team is that we're not talking about come crazy out of nowhere. I want to know who Mark Cuban is going to offer like a max offer sheet to on the first night of free agency just to get in the mix.

I want to know who is sitting there being like, we're going to make our Maasai deal. We're going to go, like we talked about in the video, but Portland jumping in the Anthony Davis thing where it's just like, we got to do something here and let's make a move. Now, Portland doesn't, I don't know what the deal is with their ownership situation right now, so I don't even know what Olshe can do there.

We've still got a situation where I don't think anybody is running the Wizards officially right now in terms of the basketball operations department. And we all know the fallout that's going to come for the Warriors after this season ends. And we don't know whether or not, what kind of ripple effects there could be within the Warriors camp itself

after this Durant situation? Yeah, I mean, they're the big domino on the table. I think it's, but it is interesting teams like Dallas. Like we're all focused on the Warriors and some of these teams at the top. But Dallas quietly has projected that this is their window.

They've gotten rid of all these future draft picks for the Knicks in order to bring in Christopps Brazingas. And they have all this cap space. And this is the prime example of what we were saying earlier. It's just that there's so few guys worthy of a max slot and yet so many teams going after him. Like, who is Dallas going to go after?

Especially if Durant is off the market and some of the Knicks and all those guys reached down and take the B-level guys. Well, if Dallas wasn't in the mix for those guys, are they reaching for the Gore-Androgics of the world? Like, is DeMarcus cousins? Yeah. If we're talking about the Warriors,

is a team like Dallas going to go after him and max him out? I don't know. These are the ripple effects. And so while it is weird to say a couple days after Duran goes down to talk about free agency, but this is how one player affects an entirely.

Yeah. And I think that it just really awakens. I think now I've been so focused on the teams that are in the playoffs and the four or five teams that we know are going to be major players and free agency, whether or not it's because they have to resign

their guys or they're going to go after guys. But now is the time of year when I start thinking about the Dallas is in the Miami's. Traditionally, front offices who put themselves in positions and even though Dallas strikes out almost every summer and winds up with like DeAndre Jordan as like their big hall.

I just am always fascinated to see what would Pat Riley do here? What teams are like just like, we're going to do something wild because Masai changed the calculus of what you can do in one season. Yeah, so pretty much the magic are going to be the next. Raptors. Can't wait.

Kevin Clark can't wait either. Justin Varyer and I will be back next week. It's obviously a draft heavy week, but there could be some trades and stuff. So Varyer and I will definitely be back next week. And then you can check out our video about the ripple effects of Kevin Durant's injury on free agency on the ringer.com

and on the ringer's YouTube page. I think it's YouTube.com slash ringer. Check out Gons and KOC after game six from Oakland. And some draft stuff we'll have for you on Friday on the podcast feed. So thanks for listening to the Ringer MBA show for Justin. This is Chris Ryan. Basketball is very good.

Basketball is very good.